Category: Uncategorized

1. I have no college degree and I have the potential to make more in a month than I used to in a year.

2. I get to work my business with a baby on my back in a carrier, all while homeschooling my little ones.

3. In these last four years, I’ve been with my babies every day. I haven’t been in an office from 8-5 wishing I were home with them.

4. Young Living has allowed me to grow a business with integrity. They ask nothing less of me. That’s important to me. I want you to see that who I say I am is who I really am, all the time. Even in my business.

5. The cost to start up my business was $160 (for oils I was buying regardless).

7. I get to work from wherever I am: my bed, the coffee shop, my phone, sitting at ballet, holding a sleeping baby, anywhere I am.

8. I am my own boss. I report to no one. When I want to work, I work. When I don’t, I don’t. If we want to take a sanity day😜, we ask no one’s permission. I can grow as fast or as slow as I want.

9. My husband is my business partner. He has different gifts than I do, so each of us brings something unique to the table.

10. I run a business on my time, on my terms, the way I want to, and I have a ton of fun doing it.

11. I work alongside my best friends. I get paid to help them see success.

12. My business will be trusted to my children when they become adults. I really can’t think of a better way to set them up financially than residual income that will grow and grow.

13. I have met hundreds of people who have made me better.

14. I have learned what my strengths are and how to work within them to maximize my potential and the potential of my business.

15. My paycheck comes (and grows) whether I work or not. Though I always choose to work, because I am in love with what I do. #residualincome

16. Over the last four years, Young Living has helped us bring MinLan and John Preston home, it’s helped us afford extras that we couldn’t have otherwise, it’s helped us help others and begin journeying toward being debt free.

17. I work for a company whose heart is in line with the Lord’s.

18. My children get to watch us chase down a dream. They talk about Young Living maybe as much as we do.😉 They love what we do and that we do it as a family. I bet they could even teach an oils 101 class by now!😂

19. I get to be a part of women encouraging other women.

20. I get to see proof every day and every month that anything truly is possible.

❤

I dream of true freedom for our family and yours too! We are on the way! How about you?

Some days I struggle. Ahhh, who am I kidding, A LOT of days I struggle. I struggle to figure out how to make it all work. Being a wife and mom, a homeschool teacher, a business owner, a friend.

Some days I want to throw in the towel and tag out on all of it. Am I the only one? I’m guessing not.

On days like these, I am reminded of my WHY. I dream of all the things God has laid on my heart and get excited about what is to come. Some of these dreams are for our family, some of them are for our business, some even for our children and grandchildren. I even dream of the plans that God has for YOU. Yep, you.

I pray and ask for the Lord’s blessing and guidance over what we are trying to accomplish in this life HE gives us. Goodness knows we can’t do this on our own. Period. Just talking it back to Him gets me excited and motivated to dream bigger dreams.

Many of you here are just like “I’m here to get YL products for my own family…not interest in the business side” and that is totally cool. You keep doing YOU friend. We love you as a member on our team, whatever that looks like for you.

But, many of you have shared your heart with me. You’ve shared YOUR “why”. Many of you want to pay off bills, adopt, retire your spouse, travel, bless your family and others. You’ve got BIG dreams. And I see you friends. I see those days when you struggle to figure all this out. When you beat yourself up and are convinced you’re doing it all wrong. When you tell yourself that you aren’t a born leader or that you aren’t knowledgable enough about all this “oily” stuff to help anyone else.

When I dream for US, I dream for YOU too.

When I pray for US, I pray for YOU too.

I am determined to see all of our WHYs happen.

Below, I want YOU to share YOUR why with us. It’s important to nail this down. It may even change and that’s ok. Mine has.

My WHY started off as being able to help bring MinLan home from China. And look at us now! She’s been home THREE YEARS and is happy, healthy and THRIVING.

I want to know your WHY. I want to cheer you on. I want to remind you of your why on days where you are doubting and want to give up.

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and will sing it back to you when you forget the words.”

Have you ever forgotten the words to the song in your heart? I know I have. MANY days. OH, to have a friend who would sing it back to me. To help me focus again on WHY I do all of this.

I want to know your why. Even if you’ve told me before, tell me again. Share it so that everyone else can see. No matter how BIG and CRAZY it might be. Be bold. Type it out.

Start a notebook today, maybe even a note on your phone…dream some new dreams if you’ve already accomplished the first ones you dreamed of. Pray and ask the Lord to light a desire in your heart for the things that really matter to Him. Ask Him to guide you. Don’t be afraid to write down those big, AUDACIOUS goals. Do it.

Want to know my WHY today?

•I want to be debt free.

•I want time economy for our whole family.

•I want to be able to get all the therapy that John Preston, MinLan and Neely need without worrying about what insurance will cover.

•I want to quickly pay off my van and be able to buy Bryan a newer truck.

•I want to be able to throw our kiddos and grandbabies in the car and head to Disney at the drop of a hat.

•I want our family homestead to be exactly what we dream it to be…great place for the kids to play, animals, playground, relaxing.

•I want to open our home to foster children one day.

•I want to be able to fully fund adoptions for other families who want to adopt.

•I want to be able to buy an RV and travel with our children.

•I want to have the funds to be able to bless anyone and everyone that God puts in front of me with a need. To be able to be the hands & feet of Jesus to a world that is hurting.

•I want to see each member of our team walking free of debt, spending their days with their children, and living their passions using the gifts their Maker gave them.

I could think of so much more, but just listing those has got me sitting here FIRED UP.

List your WHYs below so that we can know what you are running toward and why. And so that we can sing the song back to you in case you ever forget the words.

Our next step as a family, after beginning to eliminate processed foods from our diet, was to tackle a Whole30.

The very first one I did was in the summer of 2015. Ellie jumped in and joined me and ROCKED it! The rest of the family….not so much. HA! Bryan was traveling a lot so that made it hard for him and the other kids weren’t so sure about eliminating some of the foods they loved for thirty days.

Here are the basics.

Thirty days

No sugar

No alchohol

No grains

No legumes

No dairy

No MSG, carrageenan or sulfites

No baked goods or junk food made with approved ingredients

I know what you’re thinking.

WHAT!?!??!?!

No way, I could do that!

Hear me on this…it’s only thirty days. You can do anything for thirty days. Seriously, come on. You can do hard things.

And here’s the benefit…You are going to learn so much about yourself and the way that food makes you feel.

That information is priceless. And worth the thirty days. Trust me.

At the end of the thirty days, you add back in each of the excluded groups, one by one. See if they cause you any issues. If they don’t, toss them back into your diet and move along.

If you add one of the groups back and notice some ill effects, it’s time to evaluate whether or not you want to permanently eliminate that item from your diet.

For me, I quickly realized that gluten and dairy were NOT my friends. They shouldn’t even be acquaintances of mine. HA!

Can I have them from time to time? Sure. Not the end of the world. But to consume on a daily basis, three meals a day? Nope, my body rebelled. Gluten caused SO MUCH inflammation in my joints and body. The way I felt WITHOUT gluten was so obvious. If inflammation is something you struggle with, it is worth thirty days of your life to see if eliminating gluten can help you.

Dairy…well let’s just agree to not discuss the effects of dairy. Jenifer is much happier without dairy. All we need to say.

If you want to know the WHY of Whole 30, then start with their first book called “It Starts with Food”. For some, this may be way too technical and more than you ever wanted to know. I’ll let you be the judge. Definitely a great book!

My favorite page on the entire Whole30 website is the downloads page. So much great information! I printed it all out and took it to my local office supply store and had it all spiral bound together….cost me about $3 and then I had all the basics in one convenient place. Easy to toss in my bag and have on the go.

Two other books that I LOVED as resources during my Whole30 were by Danielle Walker….she is amazing! Some recipes require some tweaking but lots of great ideas!

You can read about Danielle’s story HERE and how she used food to help heal her body. AMAZING!

Interested in doing your own Whole30? Check out our Facebook group just for mommas! Everyone is always happy to answer questions there and cheer you on!

My mom cooked from scratch, I don’t remember many boxed, processed foods as a child. Some Chef Boyardee thrown in for convenience, sure, but not everyday.

Then Bryan and I get married.

He had two small sons and I might have fed them mostly Hamburger Helper and canned green beans. YIKES!

I didn’t know better and MAN were those Hamburger Helpers EASY!!!

We went out to eat fast food a lot…McDonald’s was a staple as well as other fast food joints. The kids loved eating out at kid friendly places and it felt like we were good parents when we regularly treated them to a fun meal out.

Then along came Ellie.

My first born.

Dare I say, the foods that crossed her sweet little lips suddenly mattered to me more than I could have ever imagined.

Did we do a complete 180?

No, but my eyes became a bit more critical of food labels, I made her baby food myself and breastfeed for fourteen months. We bought her milk from a local dairy and thought we were doing pretty well.

Add in babies number 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

With each little one’s arrival, I began to realize that we thought we were doing well but we were fooling ourselves.

This week, I wanted to share with you a bit about our process and some resources we used along the way.

My first goal was to cut back and eliminate, as much as possible, processed foods.

While I was doing well with the kids and at mealtime, I was still a glutton for treats from the snack machine at ballet, trips to Starbucks and “healthy” fast-food. Who can resist Chick-Fil-A, am I right?!?!?

I continued to pack on the pounds. Many from pregnancy and many from the foods we were eating.

This book was such a great place for us to start! It wasn’t TOO crazy radical! HA! It was easy to make these very simple changes. EAT.REAL.FOOD. She suggests that if you DO buy something processed, then choose something with real food ingredients and no more than FIVE ingredients on the label.

This one book started us on a journey of intense label reading and we have never looked back. Even my kids will pick up an item in the grocery store, read the label and say “YUCK, we don’t eat that”!

Maybe the thing I loved most about this book, was that Lisa was just a mom like me. She didn’t have a “title” that made her new food choices possible. She just wanted to do better for her girls. She did the research, made changes and saw results. For her, this isn’t about a diet or losing weight. It was just about making better choices for life.